Monday, May 16, 2005

Al-Assad will meet the tribes from Kurdistan

According Arabicnews.com[1] news reports in Damascus said that the Syrian authorities will shortly announce offering scores of thousands of Kurds the right to have the Syrian nationality.

Meantime, President Bashar al-Assad will be meeting with representatives of Kurdish tribes from the northern parts of Syria, in a step which is the first of its kind at this level.

A senior Syrian official asked to be anonymous said that an agreement was finalized on Sunday providing for decreasing the number of Kurds who are deprived of the nationality and this measure will target 100,000, according to official authorities estimates and that the measures provided for the implementation of this new settlement will start soon.

Well-informed Syrian sources said that al-Assad will be shortly meeting with the representatives of Arab and Kurdish tribes in the Kurdish north of Syria. A meeting to be held at this level for the first time, especially following the role played by these tribes in easing down during al-Qamishli acts of riots in 2004. The sources have not ruled out that the announcement will be after announcing a settlement for the question of Kurds who are deprived from the nationality

Although it looks like the Kurds get more rights, recently one Kurd got jailed because he was a member of an underground "separatist" organisation, the PKK. The court adjourned the case of two others.

According to Reuters[2] some Kurdish political activists accuse the Syrian state of trying to stamp out their distinct cultural identity and dilute the Kurdish character of the northeastern Jazeera -- a fertile plain rich in oil and gas that Syria's command economy needs.

[3]The Syrian security forces in western Kurdistan [eastern parts of Syria] have been applying strict measures and body searching the local people as a prelude for stationing the Syrian troops pulled out from Lebanon. Kurdish eyewitnesses say that Syria has decided to station in the entire western Kurdistan, particularly in Jazeera area, the pulled troops and the government is setting up a huge camp in Qamishlu for that purpose. Western Kurdistan was the scene of a comprehensive uprising that confused the Syrian authorities in the area last year.